SAN DIEGO — Health officials are cautiously optimistic San Diego County may have passed the peak of daily new coronavirus cases from the holiday surge. The county set a record on Jan. 7 when it reported 4,550 new cases. On Tuesday there were 2,498 new cases.
“I suspect we're probably a couple of weeks out before we start to see the ICU numbers go down. Unfortunately, in that time, I suspect the overall number of deaths that we're seeing will go up,” said Thomas Lawrie, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Sharp Memorial Hospital.
Hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths are considered lagging indicators of the virus’ progression and take weeks to reflect.
Doctors have also gotten better at treating COVID-19 symptoms and saving lives since the pandemic began. In April, the mortality rate was 4.2%. During the summer surge, it was 1.3% and it has since dropped to 0.9% so far in January.
However, this results in more patients in the ICU and hospital beds with symptoms, such as lung issues, that take significantly longer to recover compared to other illnesses.
“We're just seeing so many of these patients develop [acute respiratory distress syndrome], so they stay in the ICU longer and if you can't get people out of the ICU and keep people putting in the ICU, the numbers in the ICU go up,” said Lawrie.
County hospitals had a record 428 people in ICUs with COVID-19 on Jan. 15. They are expected to remain in “surge” status as hospitals continue to treat holiday cases.
Lawrie believes the numbers will start to decline over the next few weeks, which will give his hospital's overworked staff a small chance to breathe.
“We’re doing everything we can. We're working as hard as we ever have any of our careers,” said Lawrie. “It's really only the past couple of weeks have seen the morale starting to slip a little bit. The cracks are starting to show through. The stress is definitely more evident. That being said, people are still committed to doing whatever they need and I think this plateau in the community is really a bright light for all of us.”
